Developing a mobile application has been proven a key to success for any business, we all know this for real. Businesses have seamless opportunities with the power of mobile apps and engage effectively with their target audience. But the million-dollar question is: What should you choose? Hybrid mobile app development or native mobile app development to build the next-gen mobile app?
Let us begin with a short understanding of the difference between the two.
Quick Peek on Hybrid vs Native Mobile App Development
What is a Hybrid App?
An application that runs in different systems and platforms such as Android, iOS, Windows, etc., and browsers such as Safari, Chrome, Mozilla, Opera, etc. Using a single codebase, only minor tweaks are needed to build the same mobile app for different platforms.
What is a Native App?
A mobile application that is developed using a native code that includes a native codebase for one specific platform is called a native mobile app. For example, if a mobile application is built for Android, it will not run on any other OS. Each OS has a specific Integrated Development Environment (IDE), coding language, and guidelines to follow. Android OS uses Android Studio as IDE and Java or Kotlin as the language. iOS, for instance, uses Xcode as IDE and Objective-C or Swift as the language.
It all comes down to making a choice whether you should go for hybrid app development or native app development. And it depends on a lot of factors like project scope, time to launch, budget for development and maintenance, target audience, platform freedom, app portability, and finally, the cost.
Prime Examples of Hybrid Apps that Inspire Us
The popularity of hybrid mobile apps is rising over native mobile apps in recent years due to huge development upgrades using the most advanced technologies. Powerful frameworks like React Native, Flutter, and Ionic and technologies like CSS3, HTML5, and JavaScript help mobile application developers to build native-like functionalities.
Big fishes in all industries have shown trust in hybrid app development over the years to deliver native-like user experiences. Some of the most powerful names on the list include:
- Twitter: Social networking app
- Instagram: Social networking app
- Evernote: Note taking & task management app
- Uber: On-demand taxi booking marketplace app
- Cryptochange: Cryptocurrency app
- Justwatch: Online streaming app
To clear the cloud, let us look at this stat from Forbes – 37 out of 50 top retail applications are hybrid. This makes up around 74% of the top 50 retail apps. This dominance is significant apparently and shows the rise in the emerging demand for hybrid app development services.
Apparently, it is clear that irrespective of being a Fortune 100 company, enterprise, SME, or startup, hybrid app development is one for all. This is a clear indication of the continued dominance of hybrid mobile app development in 2023.
Why hybrid mobile app development is preferred lately?
Hybrid applications, as we all know, are a power combo of native and web frameworks. With this thing in mind, let us shift our focus to the benefits of hybrid mobile application development over native mobile app development.
Avail Perks of Single Codebase
Hybrid mobile app development uses a single codebase for building apps. This is not possible while going for native mobile app development. Normally, native mobile apps have two versions: iOS and Android. To develop native apps for both Android and iOS, two separate mobile apps need coding.
Whereas hybrid mobile app development enables you to build apps using frameworks like React Native, Flutter, etc., developers create a single code that could create apps to run on multiple platforms. Even in hybrid mobile app testing, the developers do not need to create unique test scripts for various platforms. A single codebase is proven to minimize the test architecture and simplifies QA & testing process.
Brings DevOps to Mobile Environment
Now you can integrate into your mobile app development ecosystem with hybrid app development. DevOps into mobile apps is to meet the faster and evolving needs to upgrade mobile applications for businesses. As a result, business owners can update a full-fledged mobile app with the same frequency as the web apps. This is something that is impossible for native apps.
Crucial tools like Git, Appium, and Jenkins have a crucial role to play here. When these are well integrated, the entire focus remains on mobile app development and testing.
Delivers Enhanced UX & UI
The UI/UX design of a mobile app boosts the success chances of it. This is why it is given critical importance for any mobile app.
The latest tools, technologies, and frameworks to build Hybrid mobile apps that provide an intuitive user experience. The performance of graphics and content in hybrid apps is also faster as the lightweight UI plays its role in it. Enhanced UI/UX offers higher chances of getting approval for your hybrid apps on the App Store and Play Store.
Increased Efficiency in App Development
It happens quite often that people waste a lot of time deciding which platform to go for. Consult with the top mobile app development companies to discuss your next great idea to build a mobile app. Most people do not know the limitations and intricacies depending on the project requirements. This is why you need to hire hybrid mobile app developers from a reputed hybrid mobile app development company.
Hybrid app development saves time so that you can use a single language and SDK to build apps on any device or operating system- Apple products, Android devices, or web browsers. As it is faster, it saves time and money.
Time to Market
Increased efficiency in the development cycle promises increased speed. As the single code base in hybrid app development reuses up to 90% of code to develop apps for various OS versions, the total development time to build an app for both Android and iOS is significantly reduced.
Faster development allows businesses to plan launch campaigns in a better way. You can simultaneously release your app on Play Store and App Store. This will deliver ample time to market your new app and also allows the bandwidth to make the changes that you need.
Offers Offline Support
This feature is the most popular one among users as hybrid apps are able to store offline data. This makes the hybrid mobile app load the data quickly and store the information partially for users to access, especially in remote areas where there may be little or no internet connectivity.
Offline data support is also a greater feature for those users who want to decrease their mobile data consumption. Definitely an incredible option for startups who would like to engage with their potential customers.
Multi-platform Support
Hybrid mobile apps are limitless and are free of any limitations while running on a specific platform. Top hybrid application development companies make custom hybrid mobile apps that run smoothly on multiple platforms to deliver a native-like user experience.
In the event that the stage is generally perceived, there won’t be any issue with getting anticipated help for the recently presented working framework and its progressive updates.
Top Used Hybrid App Development Frameworks
Flutter
Flutter is the SDK that is developed by Google to build beautiful cross-platform applications using a single codebase. Launched back in 2017, Flutter has made its way to become the top choice of hybrid app developers in a very short time given its range of benefits.
Some benefits of Flutter:
- It’s compatible with Fuchsia, Google’s mobile OS.
- It provides its own widgets and makes it easier to implement buttons, sliders, switches, dialogue boxes, tab boxes, tab bars and more.
- It offers you a hot reload feature to speed up the testing process and make instant changes in the live codes.
- It enables you to assemble multiple widgets for crafting your app’s UI.
React Native
Developed by Facebook, React Native is the most popular SDK to build hybrid apps. It is considered as the hybrid or cross-platform app developers’ number 1 choice over the years. React Native is a JavaScript-based framework that allows Java and Swift developers to learn React Native with ease.
So if you wish to hire React Native developers, here are a few benefits you are bound to get:
- React Native offers native-like app experiences.
- Significant savings on time and cost due to code reusability.
- Backed and preferred by a humongous dev community that helps to solve problems.
- Live Reload feature with two screens, one to update the code and the second to preview, helps developers to make changes in real-time.
- Offers an option to choose from a wide range of social plugins including display grid, picture, feed, and more.
Ionic
While Flutter and React Native are widely used and popular, many believe that Ionic is still the best choice for hybrid app development services. It is an Angular-based framework so it includes a low learning curve.
Find out why!
- A rich collection of powerful features and functionalities is offered in Ionic.
- The ionic framework offers a wider range of UI components and predefined elements.
- The live-reload system empowers developers to preview hybrid app right on the target device.
- Ionic provides a wide choice of debugging tools that are supported by the large dev community.
Final Takeaways
We hope with this article explained hybrid app development in the best way possible to get an idea of what you should choose. The fact is businesses are more interested in hiring mobile app developers with the same skills.
Following are the questions for you to figure out why should you choose hybrid app development in 2023.
- How much time you can save in launching your app?
- How many moments of frustration can you avoid without getting tangled up with the native IDEs, SDK, and Apple-specific requirements?
- How easier would it be for your app testing and QA?
- How much lighter a load of third-party libraries would be?
- How easier it would be to adopt the one dedicated technology approach instead of having to “jungle” with multiple programming languages to develop different native apps.
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